The inaccurate LA Times story AGU cites was excerpted (via a Chicago Tribune reprint) and linked here yesterday at WUWT. AGU issued this press release today, which is repeated in entirety below. – Anthony
Inaccurate news reports misrepresent a climate-science initiative of the American Geophysical Union
AGU Release No. 10–37
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2010/2010-37.shtml
8 November 2010
For Immediate Release
WASHINGTON—An article appearing in the Los Angeles Times, and then picked up by media outlets far and wide, misrepresents the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and a climate science project the AGU is about to relaunch. The project, called Climate Q&A Service, aims simply to provide accurate scientific answers to questions from journalists about climate science.
“In contrast to what has been reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, there is no campaign by AGU against climate skeptics or congressional conservatives,” says Christine McEntee, Executive Director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union. “AGU will continue to provide accurate scientific information on Earth and space topics to inform the general public and to support sound public policy development.”
AGU is the world’s largest, not-for-profit, professional society of Earth and space scientists, with more than 58,000 members in over 135 countries.
“AGU is a scientific society, not an advocacy organization,” says climate scientist and AGU President Michael J. McPhaden. “The organization is committed to promoting scientific discovery and to disseminating to the scientific community, policy makers, the media, and the public, peer-reviewed scientific findings across a broad range of Earth and space sciences.”
AGU initiated a climate science Q&A service for the first time in 2009 to provide accurate scientific information for journalists covering the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. AGU has been working over the past year on how to provide this service once again in association with the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico.
AGU’s Climate Q&A service addresses scientific questions only. It does not involve any commentary on policy. Journalists are able to submit questions via email, and AGU member-volunteers with Ph.D.s in climate science-related fields provide answers via email.
The relaunch of the Climate Q&A service is pending. When AGU is ready to announce the service, we will notify journalists on our distribution list via a media advisory that the service is once again available for their use.
For additional information about the Q&A service please see a 2 March 2010 article [pdf] about the 2009 Q&A service that was published in AGU’s weekly newspaper Eos, and a blog post about the service on AGU’s science communication blog The Plainspoken Scientist.
The American Geophysical Union was established in 1919, and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. AGU advances the Earth and space sciences through its scholarly publications, meetings and conferences, and outreach programs. For more information, please visit the AGU web site.
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I just checked the source story on the LA Times website here
The story remains, but with this clarification now added mid story:
CLARIFICATION:
The effort by John Abraham is separate from the Geophysical Union’s.
There is no mention of the AGU press release.
The Chicago Tribune story here remains unchanged.
I am a PE
Still, Dr. Curry will most probably be more selective of whom she signs on with for her studies and efforts.
I would kinda thing the scientist would finally feel free. I don’t have to manipulate the data anymore. I don’t have to say Mann is scientific anymore. I can propose my hypotheses and go get real world data to analyze.
If I were a young climate science student, if I had to choose between Dr. Mann and Dr. Curry, choose the prodigal son or the heretic, I would choose the heretic. It gives you freedom of speech. It is awfully hard to bite the lip and swallow words for fear of what one says, especially when your calculations verify who is right.
An unlikely scenario, I admit, but if ever I get to lead a prominent lead body and read about junior members who have misrepresented the policies of my organisation by conflation with their opinions, I would not be happy with a issuing a bland refutation.
Nothing less than the most fulsome of apologies from the perpetrators would suffice, in the pain of excision from my society.
To do otherwise is. simply, cowardice, at best, complicity otherwise!
Good day to you Sir.
Contributors and WUWT may be interested to know about how AGU allows the addressing of “scientific questions only” and does not involve themselves “in any commentary on policy”.
In the EOS Transactions (AGU) Vol 91 No 37 14 September 2010 is an article titled “Climate Change: Past, Present and Future” authored by Chapman and Davis of the Dept of Geology and Geophysics University of Utah. (EOS is a short ‘newspaper’ of essays; papers; discussion with ads put out frequently by the AGU)
The centrepiece of the above lengthy ‘essay’ is a diagram that astounded me. Yes you guessed it “The Hockey Stick Graph” but with proxy reconstructions by Esper (2002), Mann and Jones (2003), Moberg (2005), Hegeri (2006) all with individual wavy lines oscillating around the Mann graph with Esper having actually lower values of temperature. Yes no Medieval Warm Period to be seen together with of course dramatic exponential rise up to 3deg C projected by the IPCC (A2, A1B,B1 and C3).
The ‘paper’ concludes “One major challenge in formulating climate mitigation and adaption policies is first convincing a skeptical public that global warming is real, that it exceeds in magnitude and pace the natural changes over the millennium, and that it is rapidly moving into an uncharted future fraught with serious consequences”
The second commentary comes from an essay covering four columns by K. Verosub Dept of Geology Univ of California. (EOS Vol 91 No 33 August 2010) titled “Climate Science in a Postmodern World”. Verosub claims that climate scientists “should have anticipated a postmodern interpretation of their findings and should have been prepared to deal with it.” He contends the climate scientists are not making themselves understood and to “ understand that science is operating in a post-modern world environment and that scientists have to engage post-modern climate skeptics on their own terms, even though that might be distasteful”
Well its pretty clear to me where the AGU stands on the issue of AGW and the “scientific principles” they will be promoting.
EJ; “Thus, a decade or two down the road, we can ask if these scientists were correct.”
Of course they will be correct; can’t you just hear it, “See we saved the world because we convinced everyone to burn food for fuel, and use “funny” lightbulbs, and pay more for “green” energy, and not to fly in planes (although we had to do so, to ensure that no-one else could!) etc etc.
Zeke the Sneak says:
November 8, 2010 at 6:44 pm
“I guess they don’t read their own publication, Eos. It’s climate change from back to cover, and half of it is advertisements for people to run climate models.”
Zeke – they’re not dumb. They know the Climate Ca$h gravy train when it comes whistling down the tracks. From now on it’s climate change/disruption 24/7. The fundamental formula is
climate change expertise = $$$ + lots of prestige and media coverage
We’re all climate “scientists” now…
Frank K. says:
November 8, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Zeke – they’re not dumb. They know the Climate Ca$h gravy train when it comes whistling down the tracks. From now on it’s climate change/disruption 24/7. The fundamental formula is
I have read and understood the above comment. I do not want these people any where near my billfold, my water spigget, or anything else http://hillary.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/21/clinton_is_promoting_cookstoves_to_save_the_world
they are after.
The undersigned,
Zeke
“AGU”…is awfully close to….”AGW”. Go figure.
Chris
John from CA,
Thanks for displaying the bogus pseudo-science from the AGU. I especially liked this mumbo-jumbo, taken straight from cargo cult ‘science’:
“Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities. Recent changes in many physical and biological systems are linked with this regional climate change.”
As Karl Popper made clear, testability is an essential prerequisite of the scientific method. But in those two brief sentences, the AGU inadvertently falsifies anthropogenic global warming, by admitting that Antarctica is not affected by AGW, and by admitting that the purported changes are only regional in nature.
Regional climate change is simply another way of saying “natural climate variability”: the long accepted climate null hypothesis.
If global warming is caused by human activity, then it must have global effects. They cannot exclude one entire continent, and still claim that the effect is global.
Scientific skeptics have nothing to prove, because demanding answers is their job. The purveyors of the CAGW hypothesis have the obligation to show that their alternate hypothesis explains the climate better than natural variability. As usual, they have failed – and as usual, they run and hide out from any debate.
The AGU’s statement that “The Earth’s climate is now clearly out of balance” is directly contrary to all of the empirical evidence, and could have been written by George Orwell himself. In fact, today’s climate is more benign than it has been for almost the entire past ten thousand years.
MIT’s Prof Richard Lindzen wrote about organizations like the AGU that have been hijacked by corrupt individuals pushing their CAGW agenda. The AGW is a case in point [see Section 2].
And just remember, when the “climate” “scientists” start on their next Misery Tour (shortages, dirth and want),
The Cheifio says
“There Is No Shortage of Stuff”!
“In contrast to what has been reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, there is no campaign by AGU against climate skeptics or congressional conservatives,”
The LA Times is well known to be biased left. This story was desperation, and maybe spite, over the election results.
We’ll have an army of 700 scientists…..well, at least 39…..would you believe just John Abraham?
AGU President’s Message on InterAcademy Council’s Recommendations to Improve the IPCC
1 September, 2010
The American Geophysical Union affirms the basic scientific conclusions of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and endorses the recommendations of the InterAcademy Council for improving the IPCC process. Implementing these recommendations will strengthen IPCC’s efforts to ensure the best science is available to inform the public and policy makers about the reality of climate change and its consequences for the planet.
There go the Himalyan Glaciers…
Isn’t this just a new form of disinvitation?
President of AGU; We want to expand our influence and help create a sustainable future.
Abraham; Great! I’ll form a climate rapid response team that will debate the skeptics on their own turf. Conservative talk shows, skeptic blogs, and we’ll go straight at those moronic right wing bigots in congress.
Pres; Excellent idea! The AGU will back you in any way possible. We can round up dozens, no… hundreds of voluteers.
24 hours elapse
Vice President of AGU; Uhm… have you seen the reaction from the skeptics to Abraham’s press release?
Pres; No. They running scared? Crying to their mama’s?
VP; Uhm… no. They’re slobbering all over the opportunity to debate. They’re over joyed, chomping at the bit, they can hardly wait.
Pres; Are they insane? Don’t they know we’re scientists?
VP; Uhm… sorta. They say what’s going on isn’t science.
Pres; Like any of them would actually know…
VP; Uhm… you might want to look at some of these questions they are asking. Read number 1.
Pres; …..oh sh*t.
VP; …and number 2.
Pres;………..uh oh.
VP; It gets worse. Try number 3.
Pres;….. oh…. my…. goodness. OK here’s what we’re gonna do. Call a press conference and announce that we’re not an advocacy group and that we only do science not politics and Abrahams intiative has nothing to do with us.
VP; But you encouraged him….
Pres; That was before I knew about these questions! You want to see these questions in public? Are you nuts? Sc**w Abraham. We’ve got to drag dirt over this thing and bury it. It wasn’t us, we had nothing to do with it, and we don’t debate science with anyone, these skeptics with these questions most of all.
In a few years maybe they will be telling us that the whole “Man Made Climate Change” thing was caused by misreporting by the media and they meant something completely different.
James.
Oh…Ok.
Three little words: Starve their funding
This is where my kids would employ the most clever of rejoinders…
“Only monkeys look!”
We been punked by AGU! 🙂
I think we should come up with a list of simple, basic question for the AGU team to address.
Here’s a start-
1) What is the empirical evidence that increasing atmospheric water vapour is a positive forcing for temperature?
2) What is the scientific basis for the selection of 2 degrees centigrade as a measure of merit/concern/import for global temperature rise by IPCC and its masters?
3) What is the empirical evidence that there is the tropical tropospheric hot spot?
4) Since 25% of all human emissions of CO2 have occurred in the past 12 years, why have global temperatures been generally falling in that period?
Feel free to continue…………….
The fact that the AGU plan was taken up by alarmists at media outlets to attack skeptics means that is doomed from the start.
It highlights, once again, the nefarious relationship between scientists, scientific bodies and environmental journalists in promoting alarmism in the main stream media.
What was once considered the norm pre-Climatage is now considered to be totally counter-productive and damaging to all science.
The AGU have clearly not learnt that lesson. It needs to talk and listen to ordinary people and not enviro-journalists.
I don’t know why the AGU/Mann et al need to worry about replying to questions on climate change. Don’t they have a spambot replying to all questions?:
http://www.cfact.org/a/1836/Alarmist-spammer-unleashes-Twitterbot-to-stifle
OOn a serious note: The warmist camp is again refusing to discuss the issue scientifically with scientists, but instead are ready to discuss the issue with journalists. They don’t even accept the fact that there are many scientists; thousands of them in fact, who in varying degrees are sceptical of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis/theory. Being afraid to face these questioning and sceptical scientists, the warmists, after so many years of avoiding discussions and calls to come down from their pulpits, are now ‘ready’ to get questions from journalists.Just like a politician in front of a podium giving a press release, confirming that these scientists are acting more like politicians.
What would be the average scientific knowledge of many journalists? Sports journalists are normally failed sportsmen. What are climate journalists?
Suppose the gave a war and nobody came, from their own side I mean. First they thought they had 700 officers, then 39, then no one. We r still waiting.
Got to watch that pea, ‘Journalists are able to submit questions via email’ – “Sorry you are on the black list of media outlets we will not be answer questions from, please try again in about 20 years.”
‘AGU member-volunteers with Ph.D.s in climate science-related fields provide answers via email.’ – Sorry we have no volunteers at this time to deal with your questions please try again in about 20 years.
@davidmhoffer – very funny.
Not much to add to what’s already been said, but I found a commented-out, older version of their logo tucked away in the HTML of their website: http://www.agu.org/
The struck out logo reads:
<!–<p>AGU is a worldwide scientific community that advances, through unselfish cooperation in research, the understanding of Earth and space for the benefit of humanity.</p>–>
The new logo ,currently showing at the bottom of http://www.agu.org:
<p>AGU galvanizes a community of Earth and space scientists that collaboratively advances and communicates science and its power to ensure a sustainable future.</p>
I think this proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that they prefer to be known as “community galvanizers” rather than as a “scientific community”.
I’m guessing, but I’ll bet this new logo reflects a recent change in preferences of Christine McEntee, who replaced Robert Van Hook as AGU executive directory on Aug 30. Apparently she’s quite the “activist” compared to her predecessor.
It would seem the AGU forgot it’s own message in dealing with the media, “A
reporter is NOT in the business of educating the public.”
From the AGU’s own publication: “You and the Media. A researcher’s guide for dealing
successfully with the news media.”
Link to pdf here: http://www.agu.org/news/mass_media_fellowship/index.shtml
It begs the question if the AGU believe that the news media is not in the business of educating the public then why is the AGU attempting to use the news media to get its message across?